that she was dead.

She had been dead twenty years, as a matter
of fact and record, and to the last of her life
sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions
of her family, a family bound up -- as it is
quite unnecessary to explain to any one in
good society -- with all that is most venerable
and heroic in the history of the Republic.
Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial hos-
pitality of her house, even when she remained
its sole representative. She continued to
preside at her table with dignity and state,
and to set an example of excessive modesty
and gentle decorum to a generation of restless
young women.

It is not likely that having lived a life of
such irreproachable gentility as this, Miss
Carew would have the bad taste to die in any
way not pleasant to mention in fastidious
society. She could be trusted to the last, not
to outrage those friends who quoted her as
an exemplar of propriety. She died very un-
obtrusively of an affection of the heart, one
June morning, while trimming her rose trellis,
and her lavender-colored print was not even
rumpled when she fell, nor were more than
the tips of her little bronze slippers visible.